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Stop Working From the Beach: 5 Counterintuitive Tips to Actually Take a Vacation This Summer
Last summer, I watched a business owner sit on a beach in Hawaii with her face buried in her phone at 8pm because her team needed her to approve a $200 refund. That's not a vacation. That's working in a different time zone with a worse Wi-Fi connection.
If you're already pre-stressing about how the next 12 weeks are going to go, this episode is for you. We're skipping the usual advice — no out-of-office templates, no SOP documentation, no "fortify your business" generalities. Instead, I'm walking through the 5 unusual moves I help my fractional COO clients make every year so they can actually unplug — and most founders have never heard any of them.
In this episode, you'll learn:
- Why running a "Ghost Week" in stealth (without telling your team) is the only honest test of whether your business can run without you — and the surprise story of a "stealth leader" one client discovered hiding in plain sight
- How to bank pre-decisions instead of writing more SOPs — and why the Ritz-Carlton $200 rule is the model your business is missing.
- The one reverse delegation question to ask each of your direct reports before you leave — and what their answers will reveal about the bottlenecks you didn't know existed.
- Why you should book the non-refundable trip BEFORE your business is ready (and how this "burn the boats" approach forces the hires, fires, and decisions you've been procrastinating for years)
- The return strategy almost no one talks about: why coming back on a Thursday instead of a Monday — and blocking your first three days — is the difference between a vacation that sticks and one that disappears the moment you walk back in
The thread running through all five: every one of these shifts the question from "how do I prevent problems while I'm gone?" to "what does my business reveal about itself when I'm not there?" That second question is the one that builds a business you can step away from — not just this summer, but for the rest of the time you own it.
ABOUT THE HOST
Melissa Franks is the founder of On Call COO, a fractional COO services firm that helps founders get out of the weeds, operate more efficiently, and build businesses that can run without them. She is not a coach. She is not a consultant. She is an operator who loves running businesses, and she helps founders do the same.
Learn more: https://www.melissafranks.com/fractionalcooservices
Connect with Melissa:
Watch the Episodes on Youtube
Instagram: instagram.com/melissa_franks
Schedule a call: melissafranks.com
View all episodes
By Melissa FranksLast summer, I watched a business owner sit on a beach in Hawaii with her face buried in her phone at 8pm because her team needed her to approve a $200 refund. That's not a vacation. That's working in a different time zone with a worse Wi-Fi connection.
If you're already pre-stressing about how the next 12 weeks are going to go, this episode is for you. We're skipping the usual advice — no out-of-office templates, no SOP documentation, no "fortify your business" generalities. Instead, I'm walking through the 5 unusual moves I help my fractional COO clients make every year so they can actually unplug — and most founders have never heard any of them.
In this episode, you'll learn:
- Why running a "Ghost Week" in stealth (without telling your team) is the only honest test of whether your business can run without you — and the surprise story of a "stealth leader" one client discovered hiding in plain sight
- How to bank pre-decisions instead of writing more SOPs — and why the Ritz-Carlton $200 rule is the model your business is missing.
- The one reverse delegation question to ask each of your direct reports before you leave — and what their answers will reveal about the bottlenecks you didn't know existed.
- Why you should book the non-refundable trip BEFORE your business is ready (and how this "burn the boats" approach forces the hires, fires, and decisions you've been procrastinating for years)
- The return strategy almost no one talks about: why coming back on a Thursday instead of a Monday — and blocking your first three days — is the difference between a vacation that sticks and one that disappears the moment you walk back in
The thread running through all five: every one of these shifts the question from "how do I prevent problems while I'm gone?" to "what does my business reveal about itself when I'm not there?" That second question is the one that builds a business you can step away from — not just this summer, but for the rest of the time you own it.
ABOUT THE HOST
Melissa Franks is the founder of On Call COO, a fractional COO services firm that helps founders get out of the weeds, operate more efficiently, and build businesses that can run without them. She is not a coach. She is not a consultant. She is an operator who loves running businesses, and she helps founders do the same.
Learn more: https://www.melissafranks.com/fractionalcooservices
Connect with Melissa:
Watch the Episodes on Youtube
Instagram: instagram.com/melissa_franks
Schedule a call: melissafranks.com